Retro-View reels

We have spent a year working out the best way to produce Retro-View reels. The actual digital image to photographic image process was the easy part – we have been doing that for 20 years or more. Trickier were issues of image alignment and reel assembly, and what we have ended up with took aspects of the original mass-produced reels of old that is scaled down to low volume production.

2D or 3D?
Technically it make no difference to us. All reels, as standard, have seven images (and this can’t be changed). However, if you want the reels to view as 3D (stereo) in the viewer, then you must supply 3D images. But of course, ordinary photos look great, but they just don’t view as 3D.

Technical notes:

The format of viewer images is landscape only, upright images won’t work well unless severely cropped.

The final images on these reels are very small – just 11.5mm x 10mm – and work best with bold and colourful photos.

If you are a Photoshop wizard then you can prepare your images to the correct size: 1240px wide x 1125px high @ 300dpi. You might find this template handy for image preparation: Retro-View template

Image choice
Our Retro-View reels have images that are a very square-ish rectangle in landscape orientation. This can’t be varied, it is part and parcel of the venerable View-Master system.

Therefore, care should be taken when choosing your images. While it is possible to use other shaped images without cropping, they don’t look great as they don’t make best use of the very small image space.

If you can find your way around Photoshop then you are welcome to pre-prepare your own images (details lower down on this page). Otherwise, we will, by default intelligently crop your images to fit the Retro-View format.

Here below are some examples of what sort of images work and don’t work.

A nice photo but the wrong shape and orientation

Without modification, this is how the image would appear in the viewer

With our intelligent cropping the image fills the view and still makes a great image

Great photo but this shape is going to present problems

Without modification, this is how the image would appear in the viewer

Even with careful cropping this image has lost the drama and is therefore best avoided

This photo looks promising but the important central figures fill a wide space

Uh-oh, this doesn’t work well, important detail is lost when cropping, making this image unsuitable

This looks promising – it is a wide picture but the important content is central

With our intelligent cropping this makes a great photo for a reel

This square image looks like it will work well

Yes, it crops very well and makes a great reel image – bold, colourful and important detail away from the edges

Shoot your photos with any digital camera (or even smartphone) using either the ‘sliding rig’ method or the ‘side step’ method or the ‘beamsplitter’ method and use software to create the image pair.

Using Photoshop methods to create pseudo-3D effects.

All of the three above methods require some knowledge and thought. Of the three, a 3D camera is by far the easiest – the Finepix W3 camera even has a 3D screen on the back so you can see the effect as you shoot. Methods outlined in the second category aren’t difficult but require experimentation. Some specialist and clever (if not immediately intuitive) software called StereoPhotoMaker can help a good deal. The third method requires both good Photoshop skills and a good understanding of what 3D is and how the brain interprets a pair of images and gives the illusion of depth. Some research on the internet will pay dividends and there are helpful YouTube video guides out there.

Our Retro-Reels are guaranteed to work in the viewers we sell, and should be fine in any “View-Master” branded viewer of the past 50 years. We can’t guarantee they will be fully compatible with other brands of miscellaneous viewers. If you buy an old View-Master viewer then we recommend you strip it down and clean it internally: debris and grease can collect on the working parts and impair reel movement and who knows what the original young owners stuffed inside!

You can also order customised reel and sleeve graphics – ideal for commercial giveaways and promotions and product launches – more information here: Customised reel graphics

Sorry, free packs only sent to UK and EU addresses due to high international shipping costs.

Scanning old slides to CD

Sorry, we ONLY go from digital to film, not the other way around. So if you are wanting your slide collection scanned onto CD or DVD to view on your TV or computer then we can't help you. These guys can though: www.slidesoncd.co.uk